


Rock the Boat

by amberbamba



Series: Manipulative Harry/Oblivious Liam Series [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M, Manipulative Harry, Oblivious Liam, schmoopyest schmoop that ever schmooped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 14:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberbamba/pseuds/amberbamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Harry is sick, Liam doesn’t realise they live together, and Louis just can’t believe this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rock the Boat

**Author's Note:**

> This might end up being the start of a series of Oblivious!Liam and Manipulative!Harry one shots, I’m not sure yet.

Knightsbridge 

8.14 pm

 

“Thanks for keeping me company, Lou,” Harry sniffles into the sleeve of his - well Liam’s - cable-knit jumper and reaches for another tissue on the coffee table. Louis immediately leans back as far as he can in the chair across from him. 

“You’re welcome, don’t touch me.” 

Harry blows his nose noisily and tosses the snotty tissue onto the pile next to him on the sofa, which without Liam there to clean it up, is becoming quite the avalanche hazard to their wandering cat.

“I don’t like being alone when Liam’s not here.”

“Harry, he’s gone to Tesco Metro, not deployed on a peacekeeping mission to Darfur.”

“I know, but I’m sick and I miss him!” Harry croaks out, his voice almost gone.

“He’s gone to get you medicine and soup, I think you’ll survive a twenty minute trip to the shops.”

“Won’t,” Harry tosses back, petulantly kicking at the tangled cotton-thermal blanket until it's around his feet. “M’hot.”

Louis just flicks his eyes to the TV and doesn’t engage. It's the only way to avoid being sucked into doing Harry Styles bidding, which at the minute is ‘entertain me’ slash ‘alter the space-time continuum so my boyfriend’s home _now_ ’.

He’s managed to get marginally involved in an episode of The Great British Bake Off when Liam’s keys jangle in the door and Harry sits up like a puppy, all but making grabby hands as Liam walks towards him and kisses him on the forehead.

“Alright Lou,” he gives a friendly wave in his direction, but his eyes are apparently checking to see if Harry's displaying any signs of organ failure. “Hi love, were you alright while I was gone?” He strokes his curls back and looks concerned, which Louis resents since babysitting Harry isn’t exactly quantum mechanics.

“Mmm, missed you.” Harry clings on to his lapels and pulls him down to snuffle against his neck, presumably to make sure he's still scent marked after their traumatizing separation. 

Liam drops the plastic bag of supplies next to him and begins to gather up the excess tissues, taking them to the bin, making Louis scrunch up his nose in disgust.

“I picked up the cough syrup and the non-drowsy daytime tablets you wanted, but I also got the night-time ones that knock you out because you need a good night’s sleep, alright?” 

“Ok,” Harry replies absently, digging around the bag, tossing out a roll of cough drops and a Mars Bar. 

“Liam this is the wrong kind.” Harry holds up a tin of Heinz condensed tomato soup sadly, giving Liam the most manipulative betrayed eyes Louis has ever seen. 

“I know, babe, but Tesco didn’t have the ready-to-eat kind, so I’ll just make it from this one.”

“But this one doesn’t taste the same,” Harry almost whispers, looking like he's about to cry. Or fake a cry that Liam will inevitably believe, Louis can't tell.

“It’s the same brand sweetheart, how different can it be?”

“Really different. This one tastes all watery and thin. I wanted the proper kind… cause my throat hurts.” He's genuinely whining now, for god sake, and either Liam actually enjoys Harry acting like this, or he's just so blinded by infatuated love and constant sex that he doesn’t notice what a devious little brat his boyfriend is.

“Didn’t Waitrose have it?”

“I didn’t check there, Harry, I - Oh no.”

“But Liam…” That's one wobbly lip too far and Louis rolls his eyes, grabbing for a magazine to flip through.

“Harry, it’s just started to snow, can’t you wait till tomorrow?”

“I s’pose.” He coughs like he's auditioning for the role of Tiny Tim and then lets his head fall back on the sofa like he can’t hold it up anymore.

“Why don’t I make you the soup and if you don’t like it, I’ll go back out?”

“Waitrose closes at nine. It’ll be too late.” Everything in his tone suggests he’ll be handing in a sick note to get out of blowjobs this week.

Louis hears Liam huff out an exasperated sigh, and then to the surprise of no one in the room, starts to re-button the coat he’d managed to get half off and stride back the way he came.

“Take those tablets while I’m gone, Harry. And put more Vick’s on!”

“Hey, where’s my kiss?” Harry smiles brightly, seemingly having made miraculous recovery from a near total emotional breakdown and the onset of plague.

Liam swings around quickly, grabbing the back of Harry’s head and kissing him unceremoniously, but with far more tongue than should strictly be used on a sick person in Louis’ opinion. 

“I love you!” Harry giggles at him stomping his way back to the door, huffily wrapping a scarf around his neck. 

"I love you too,” Liam growls back, like he knows that's the source of all his problems, and slams the door on his way out.

“You could have offered to go instead Louis,” Harry complains, clearly disgruntled that getting his own way means Liam's gone again.

“Yeah, well, I’m not getting sex from you, am I?”

“Do you want it?”

“Definitely not. Especially since it would almost certainly end with Liam ripping my bollocks off and shoving them down my throat.”

Harry laughs. There is something so disturbing about the fact that knowledge seems to please him. “Yeah, he would.”

“Hey listen, what’s Liam doing with his flat? I know someone who might want it.” Louis throws down the copy of Rolling Stone and sticks his feet up on the coffee table. 

“What do you mean? He still thinks he lives there,” Harry sniffs, unwrapping the plastic on the cold and flu tablets.

“What? How is that possible?” 

Harry shrugs, pressing the pills out into his palm and reaching for the water bottle next to him.

“You’ve been together for two years. He’s always here.”

“I know.” Harry doesn't seem bothered by this at all and it's having the effect of riling Louis up.

“When was the last time he stayed in his flat?”

“I don’t know. I tried to sit down and work it out one day and the closest I could figure was we haven’t spent a night apart since we came off tour last August, so at least seven months. But we slept in the same hotel room during the tour and he was here all the time before that, so… longer.”

“And he doesn’t realise!?”

“No. He’s really slow at relationship stuff. He didn’t realise that it was a serious relationship thing to spend Christmas morning with my family and Christmas afternoon with his until his mum explained it to him.”

“You’re joking.” Louis runs a hand through his hair despairingly.

“I don’t think he even realises that all his stuff is here and the only thing left in his flat is furniture, some light bulbs, and a tin of beans.” Harry swallows the tablets and opens the jar of Vick's next to him, smearing way too much on his chest and rubbing his hands briskly to get the remainder off. 

“Does he not know we call this Liam and Harry’s? When Zayn asked me where I was going before, I said Liam and Harry’s. Niall text me a while ago asking if I wanted to go for a pint and I said I couldn’t cause I was at Liam and Harry’s! There’s a picture on the wall of his family. He’s not even in it, It’s just his family on _your_ living room wall.” 

“You think that’s bad? Go and take a look at my medicine cabinet. He has pills that he was prescribed while he lived here and have expired since then.”

The snowy white cat that's been pacing warily around his feet for ten minutes, jumps onto the coffee table to stare him down and Louis chooses to make an example out of him. “You jointly own a cat! The cat lives here.”

“I know. Come here Beetlejuice.” Harry reaches for him, gathering him in his lap for a cuddle. “The bills are in both our names and come out of _his_ direct deposit. He doesn’t think that’s weird either.” 

“If he invites any of us over, we automatically come here. It has _never_ been the incorrect choice.”

“When we redecorated the kitchen before we went on tour, he chose the colour scheme, the tile, and all the new appliances. I don’t know why it’s so attractive watching him pick out a durable-yet-stylish fridge, but I almost went down on him in Homebase,” Harry trails off wistfully, but Louis is on a roll.

“When his nieces come to stay for the weekend, they stay here! And this has fewer rooms than his house.”

“His mum stays here too.”

“Why haven’t you told him he lives here yet?!” Louis cries, more exasperated with Harry’s casual acceptance than with whatever debilitating neurosis Liam has.

“I don’t want to scare him,” Harry replies calmly, stroking behind the purring cat's ears. “You know how he got when Zayn told him he was into me and he had that big gay freak out. I don’t want to upset the fragile ecosystem I’ve managed to lure him into.”

“You can’t possibly think he’s still coming to terms with liking boys? I don’t like to dwell on it too much but don’t you two shag like, a lot?”

“No, this has nothing to do with our relationship. The thing about Liam is he needs to stare at what’s in front of him for a long time before he accepts that it’s there. And as long as he’s living here and taking care of me and being all hot, fixing things with an electric drill, why do I care if he sees it? I’m not going to rock the sexy boat.”

“Well when Liam realises that you live together - which at this rate will presumably be when you adopt your third child on your tenth wedding anniversary, will you let him know that I have someone who wants to look round his old flat?”

“Look, he’ll get it soon enough, but he needs to come to terms with things on his own schedule. If you confront him with something he’s not processed yet, he recoils and rejects it,” Harry explains, and Louis is struck - as he is once in a while - that for all that Liam takes care of Harry, Harry takes care of Liam too. And for all that Harry manipulates Liam until he's right where he wants him and uses sex to make Liam worship him like the second coming, Harry is actually the most emotionally skilled one in the relationship. Is the one keeping it stable and healthy and as private as they can hope achieve.

Louis absolutely believes in Harry’s calm, unwavering confidence that Liam will figure it out soon. Believes that no one knows Liam better than he does, not even Liam himself.

“Fair enough,” Louis concedes, leaning back in the chair again. “Where do you think Liam’s gone for that soup?” 

“Oh, if Waitrose didn’t have it he would have gone into South Ken,” Harry says casually, and Louis shakes his head in mild disbelief.

“He’s completely nuts about you, isn’t he?”

Harry just shrugs, eying the cat clawing at the blanket for a minute. 

“I’m nuts about him too, y’know,” he mumbles eventually, as if he needs to make Louis understand that he doesn't just wrap Liam around his finger for a good time - because he can. That maybe some part of Liam enjoys it when Harry plays up and he gets to be the only one that can fix it.

Louis smiles. “I know, Haz. Let’s text him in ten minutes to make sure he’s not dead in a snow drift, okay?”

 

It's a quiet Monday evening in June when Liam turns to Harry from his position next to him at their bathroom sink.

“Harry, I don’t want to alarm you, but I think I live here.”

Harry just quirks a smile at him in the steamed up mirror where they’ve been making faces at each other and bumping hips playfully as they brush their teeth, getting ready for bed. Liam is freshly showered from washing off the drywall and sweat after spending the day installing the new guest bath, and he smells of soap and someone who's getting seriously laid tonight.

Harry spits toothpaste into the sink and rinses his mouth out, ducking around Liam to wipe his face on a towel in a well-practiced manoeuvre. Pulling the toothbrush that's dangling in Liam’s mouth aside, he leans in and kisses him sloppily on the cheek. 

“You don’t say.” 

Liam's frozen in place, and Harry gives him a sharp smack on his flannel covered arse before darting out the room. 

“Take your pants off and come to bed!”

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick question for you all. Would there be any interest in a Liam/Harry centred Livejournal community? I know it’s old-school and everyone’s into Tumbler now, which I just can’t get my head around at all, but I think an LJ would be a good place to centralise things like fic and icons, have discussions and run short memes and ficathons. I’ve used one for fandoms in the past and its always been useful to have somewhere everyone can touch base. I could set it up since I have some time to kill before I start uni in May, and after that I’d add mods.  
> Let me know if there would/wouldn’t be any interest, regardless whether you comment on the fic! Thanks guys.


End file.
